


Things to Fix

by Yamx



Series: Those We Love the Best [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Backstory: Jack Harkness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yamx/pseuds/Yamx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things need looking after. As do people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things to Fix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kholly](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Kholly).



> Written for [Kholly](http://kholly.livejournal.com/), who bid on me in the _Support Stacie Auction_. She also did other fantastic things, like organizing and contributing generously to Wiggie's Posse, so she gets a short fic rather than a ficlet. :)
> 
> Thanks to Wendymr for betaing.

As the Doctor walks towards the kitchen for breakfast, he hears Jack's voice.

"-and now the Doctor's going to kill me."

He'd grin, assuming some type of joke, if it wasn't for the trepidation in the lad's voice. The Doctor leans against the doorframe and asks, "Why am I gonna do that, then?"

Jack's head whips around and he jumps up. There's real fear in his eyes. Rose is looking worried, too. The Doctor frowns.

"C'mon, can't be as bad as all that."

Jack swallows. "I hurt the TARDIS."

If Jack has messed with something he shouldn't have touched… Their lives depend on the TARDIS functioning properly. "You better tell me what you did. Right now."

Rose opens her mouth, but the Doctor shoots her a silencing glance. Whatever it is, he wants to hear it from Jack.

Jack straightens his shoulders, keeping the Doctor's gaze with a visible effort. "You told me to clean the spindles in the aft array."

The Doctor nods and raises an eyebrow.

"I… missed one. Well, more than one. Slipped a row, actually. And didn't notice."

The Doctor groans. "And since they're all aligned in relation to each other, you went and misaligned every one after that."

Jack nods, still keeping his almost military posture. The Doctor recognizes it for the mental crutch that it is, but decides to let it slide.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. This is an annoyance, nothing more. It'll throw off navigation, but in a way that's so obvious that there was never a danger of the Doctor flying the TARDIS like this. It's a mess that'll take a few hours to clean up, that's all.

More importantly, it's an honest mistake. A careless mistake – and the Doctor hates the thought that he let someone careless near the TARDIS's systems – but it's not as if Jack was poking around in things he had no permission to mess with, or trying to sabotage them.

His own fault, for letting an ape play with the TARDIS's systems. Should have known better. But the lad had seemed so eager, had shown so much potential. Looks like he'd been playing, though, not taking it as a serious responsibility.

The Doctor turns on his heel and strides towards the sensor room. "Let's have a look."

He hears hurried footsteps – two sets, as both Jack and Rose scramble to follow him.

Rose catches up and takes the Doctor's hand. "Doctor, he didn't mean-"

"He was supposed to make the TARDIS better. Made her worse, instead." He throws a glance back. Jack's shoulders are hunched, and he's watching his feet as he walks. "An' who knows if he even would've come clean about it if I hadn't overheard."

Jack's head snaps up. "Of course I would have."

The Doctor shrugs. "Not always eager to take responsibility for your actions, are you?" Maybe unfair to bring up the nanogenes, but he can't stand it when people disrespect the TARDIS.

Jack's gaze drops.

Rose thumps the Doctor. Hard. "Don't be a git. Course he would have told you!"

"Oi!" He rubs his smarting shoulder. "How do you know?"

"'Cause he came to the kitchen looking for you. Would have gone right out when he saw you weren't there, except I made him sit down and tell me what was wrong."

Oh. Right. Well, that makes him feel more forgiving towards the bloke, despite his blunder. Also makes him feel like he's being more of a git than necessary. The Doctor throws a glance over his shoulder. Jack is trailing a few steps behind, looking guilty, dejected, and – scared. Damn, the bloke doesn’t really think he'll kill him, does he?

He addresses himself to Rose, but keeps his voice loud enough for both of them to hear. "Not like I'm actually gonna kill the bloke. Know me well enough to know I won't."

Rose nods. "Course. But-"

Another glance over his shoulder shows that Jack doesn’t look any more relaxed. What else is he scared of, then?

One of Jack's hands is in his jeans pocket, clenching and unclenching around something. The Doctor can see the hook of a keyring poking out of the pocket. Ah, so that's it.

"Jack messed up. Gonna have to face the consequences. If he wants to stay on the TARDIS" – Jack looks up at this, and there's a glimmer of hope in his eyes – "he'll have to learn to deal with what he's got coming. Can't let him get away with everything."

"I wouldn't ask you to," Jack says. "Like you said – I screwed up. Whatever you want to dish out, I'll take it."

Better. The bloke still looks appropriately remorseful, but no longer terrified. They can work with that.

They reach the sensor room – a former storage area not far from the control room. He moved the spindle arrays here during his fourth incarnation to get them out of the way. They are sensitive to artron radiation and work more reliably in a shielded room.

The Doctor only has to glance at the array to see the fault – obvious if one's got time sense. Which Jack doesn’t, of course, but he gave him the task anyway because all it takes to get it right is going row by row and keeping count.

Which Jack failed to do. The Doctor grunts, and lets go of Rose's hand to poke at the array field. "Made a right pig's ear of this, you did."

"I know. I'm sorry."

It'll take hours to fix this. Much worse than if Jack had never touched the array at all. Every spindle after the ones he skipped will have to be taken out, reset, and realigned. The Doctor glides his hands along the rows to feel how far Jack had got when he finally realized his blunder.

He notices something even more worrying than the initial mistake.

"Jack," he says. "How many did you do?"

Jack bites his lip. "I was almost at the bottom when I realized…"

The Doctor pulls out a few of the spindles at random and inspects them closely. They are clean and very precisely tuned – if it weren't for the skipped half-row, this would be perfect work.

The work of days, for a human.

He turns to Jack. "How long have you worked on these?"

Jack cocks his head. "I was almost done-"

"How long?"

"Since you told me to."

The Doctor breathes in sharply. "That was yesterday afternoon!" Has the bloke taken leave of his senses?

Rose shoves Jack's shoulder. "You told me you'd go to bed soon!"

Jack nods. "Sorry."

Rose looks at the Doctor. "I brought him a cup of tea and some biscuits last night when I was going to bed, and he said he'd call it a night soon."

The Doctor grunts. "And let me guess – those biscuits were the only thing you ate since lunch yesterday?"

Jack shrugs sheepishly.

What the hell was the idiot thinking? The Doctor fixes him in a stern gaze. "And it didn't occur to you to take a break? Eat, rest, _sleep_? You're human, the last time I checked."

"I didn't know…" Jack looks miserable.

"Know what?"

"If you'd be okay with that."

"What? You thought I wanted you to work without a break on a job that's bound to take days?"

Jack shrugs and looks away.

"Why'd I do that? Think I'm some kind of sadist?"

Jack shakes his head. "No! I thought it was…"

"What?" He taps his foot. Part of him feels sorry for the bloke – bone-tired, humiliated, and now interrogated – but he needs to get to the bottom of whatever the hell Jack was thinking.

Jack looks to Rose, who sends him an encouraging smile. "Generally best just to tell him why you messed up. Few things he hates as much as not getting answers."

The Doctor would grin at the aptness of this if he wasn't so pissed off with Jack. "Well?"

Jack looks at him, hunching his shoulders. "Thought this was my punishment."

He frowns. "For what?"

Jack laughs dryly. "Almost exterminating the human race."

The pieces fall into place. And leave the Doctor feeling like a bastard. Part of him wants to hug the lad and tell him he's sorry, remind him that they already dealt with that on his first day, that the matter was closed the moment Jack apologized. But Jack would see that as pity. It'll take something sterner to get through to him.

"Come here."

Jack hesitantly steps forward.

"Closer." He points to the floor right in front of himself.

Jack does as instructed. The Doctor can see Rose is about to ask a question. He shakes his head at her. She closes her mouth, but keeps a close eye on them.

The Doctor examines Jack's face. There are deep circles under the lad's eyes, and a gray hue to his skin. His jaw is very tense, and he's clearly making an effort to keep his shoulders down – damn, does the lad think he's about to strike him?

Does the Time Agency use physical discipline on its agents? Quite possible, judging from Jack's expression.

He puts his hands on the lad's shoulders. "You want to know what your punishment for almost exterminating the human race is?"

Jack nods. The line of his lips becomes even thinner.

The Doctor holds him by the shoulders and waits until Jack looks him in the eye. "It's almost having exterminated the human race."

Jack frowns. Rose covers her mouth. She's got it.

"No punishment I could come up with – an' believe me, I've got some ruthless ones – is ever gonna be as bad as having to live with that."

Jack nods. "Yeah." His eyes are dark and shuttered.

The Doctor squeezes his shoulders. "Wish I could help with that, lad."

Jack shakes his head. "You can't." He shifts, looking at the spindle array.

Something clicks into place. "Jack… did you really think I was punishing you… or were you punishing yourself?"

Jack shrugs. "Bit of both."

The Doctor shakes him. "Don't you _ever_ do that again. Won't have you endangering your health and my ship to try and ease the guilt." More gently, he adds. "Wouldn't work, anyway."

Jack's shakes his head. "It didn't."

"And when I tell you to do a job, unless it's life or death, I want you to do it at a reasonable pace. Don't like slackers, but don't like people I have to babysit to make sure they eat, sleep and go to the loo, either."

A corner of Jack's mouth curls up at that. "Understood."

"Right. I'll let you know when I'm punishing you." He turns Jack around by the shoulders and gently swats his backside. "Now let's have some breakfast and then you go to bed. Not going anywhere today, anyway, with the sensors in that condition."

"Let me hel-"

Another smack, this one less gentle. "Bed. You can help when you're rested. Can't use you in your state."

Jack nods. "Aye, Sir."

"When you're feeling better, I'll teach you how to use the temporal quintler so next time you do something like this, you'll know when you've messed up." It's a powerful, and dangerous, piece of equipment, but Jack's intelligent enough to handle it.

Jack looks at him over his shoulder. His eyes are wide. "You'd let me use that?"

The Doctor hides his grin behind a grumble. "Better than letting you wreak havoc." He pats Jack on the back. "You're a clever lad. Pay attention an' I'll teach you all sorts of things. But only if I can trust you to be careful. Both with my ship and with yourself."

Jack nods. He takes a deep breath. "Do you have anything that'd help against bad dreams?"

The Doctor mentally calls himself an idiot for not having figured out sooner that there might be another reason for Jack's sleep avoidance. But at least now he knows Jack is taking the order to take care of himself seriously. He considers the options. Jack hates having his head messed with, so telepathy is right out. And talking is not a quick fix. Jack needs sleep now. The Doctor doesn't approve of chemical suppressants, but right now they seem the best option. "Yeah. Get you something after breakfast, make you sleep like a baby."

As they turn towards the kitchen, Rose takes Jack's hand. The Doctor fights down a stab of jealousy. She's just comforting the lad. Not like he has any claim to her, anyway.

"You know, Jack," Rose says, "The day after my father…" Her voice trails off, but Jack nods in understanding. "I wouldn't eat. Wasn't really trying to punish myself or anything. Just… didn't feel like it, I s'pose. Or that's what I told myself."

Jack looks at her in concern. "What happened?"

Rose snorts. "The Doctor happened." She throws him a quick smile over her shoulder. He returns it warmly. "Let me get away with it for about twelve hours, then he sat me down in the kitchen and cooked the biggest damn supper you've ever seen. Beans on toast, scrambled eggs, fish fingers, rice pudding, chicken soup..." She giggles. "Was kind of an odd combination."

"Oi!" He'd just been trying to give her choices. Find whatever would go down easiest.

She grins, her tongue curling around her teeth. "Told me neither of us was leaving the kitchen before I'd had a reasonable amount of food. I moaned an' complained. Know what he told me?"

The Doctor stills. He wasn't sure at the time if she was listening – in the end, she'd eaten a bowl of soup and bits and bites of everything else, but she hadn't spoken to him at all, just glowered.

"He said that if I was trying to atone, the way to do it was not to make myself more miserable, but to make other people less so."

Seems she was listening.

Jack looks at him. "Wise words."

The Doctor nods. "Not mine. Ancient Gallifreyan philosopher." One he's been reminding himself of a lot since the Time War.

Jack nods. "Should hang that over my bed or something."

"No need," Rose grins. "We'll make sure you don't forget." She squeezes his hand.

Jack ducks his head with a smile. The Doctor puts an arm around his shoulders and exchanges a grin with Rose. They'll take care of the lad together. And he'll teach Jack more about how to take care of the TARDIS, who, of course, takes care of all of them.

And if all of that is a bit domestic, it's too fantastic for him to mind much.

The End

**Author's Note:**

>  _Prompt: Jack and the Doctor working on TARDIS repairs._
> 
> (Yes, I realize that this is the one thing that actually doesn’t happen in this fic… but it's close enough, right?)


End file.
